


Roots

by My_Dear_Watson



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9582878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Dear_Watson/pseuds/My_Dear_Watson
Summary: With Starrick gone, the streets of London are relatively safe for the immediate future. But the Frye siblings and their associates know better. The Templars start to seep back into the corners of the city, just as Jacob stumbles upon a group of civilians who want both the Brotherhood and Templars to be disbanded. The siblings set out on trying to convince the group that the Templars are the worse threat, and teaming up would be beneficial to everyone. It proves easier said than done, if their leader has anything to say about it. But if it was one thing that was certain, it was that Jacob and Evie Frye never backed down from a challenge.





	1. A Day's Work

Jacob Frye was tired. Worse yet, he was bored.

Things had been relatively quiet in the weeks after Starrick’s death. Still, Templar cells kept sneaking their way into the streets, and they had to be eliminated. This group that he had gone after was thankfully small, hiding out in the sewers. But now it was late, it was freezing, and a steady rain had started to fall.

The train was on the other side of London, and not to mention, Evie and Henry had been particularly moony around each other in the last few days, so the last place he wanted to be after reconsidering all of those factors was with them on the train.

He’d find an inn, rent a room for the night, then make his way back to the next pickup… slowly. That only left finding a place to stay left to do that night.  He could’ve sworn he had seen at least one around when he had been tailing a Templar spy not terribly long ago. He sidled off the road to scale one of the buildings to get a better vantage point to see anything familiar.

When he did, he went back to street level and wandered until he found what he was looking for.

The Orphan’s Rest.

Horrendous name aside, the inn wasn’t terribly bad at first glance. It didn’t seem seedy. The rooms above were nicely lit and looked warm, and the bar below matched. There was laughter coming from inside rather than slurred fights and glass breaking.  

He approached, and just when he was about to pass the threshold, something caught his eye that made him stop in his tracks.

A Creed symbol was etched into the wooden doorframe. It was odd, more so when there were several other lines crossing through it. He had only seen the place, he hadn’t heard of it from any contacts, so what was that doing there? Great, he had just wanted to collapse into the nearest bed, now it was a… working holiday from the world.

He rolled his eyes and made his way inside.  His initial sweep came up with most of the same results the one from outside had: the place was nice, all things considered. Happy people, no apparent lowlives, no strange deals going on, at least on the tavern side. He probably could’ve brought Mrs. Disraeli here and gotten better results than a bloody stolen corgi.

He spotted a woman behind the bar, pouring a customer a beer and chatting away. She would know who owned the place, and probably be in charge of the rooms being bought out. She was an attractive little thing, with ginger hair and big, bright eyes. He could handle spending part of the end of his day in the company of a beautiful woman. He cased the bar for a few more moments, trying to find any other leads. When he failed to see anyone else who seemed to have any authority in the place, he turned his attention back to the barmaid.

She was halfway done with cleaning a few of the glasses by now. She was humming some old sea shanty, and Jacob wasn’t sure whether to laugh or find it endearing.  One of the patrons directly behind her left, so he took the chance and sat down. “Evening, Love.” 

The barmaid’s answering playful scoff made it clear that she was aware the friendly greeting was nonsense as well. “Can I help you?”

“The innkeeper around?”  

She looked him up and down and arched an eyebrow. “You’re looking at her.” There was a challenge there, but it was only halfhearted. “Looking for a room?”

Oh, he could just feel and hear Evie going slackjawed, slapping his back and laughing for that one.  “Oh. Well then, that’s worked out. And yes.”

She set the glass she was working on down. “Worked out how?”  

He leaned forward. “Well, I was just here about a room until I saw the doorway…” he began.

A shadow crossed her face, but she recovered quickly. “Go on…?”

Jacob resisted the urge to roll his eyes, having caught her actual reaction. He pulled his coat aside to show the Creed symbol stitched into it. “Just curious as to why that’s on the door when I’ve only heard of this place in passing.”

She hesitated, then leaned back. “You’re Jacob Frye, aren’t you?”

He smirked and bowed his head quickly. “At your service.”

“Good,” the barmaid replied.

A moment later,  Jacob had a pistol levelled between his eyes. He jerked back, but considering she didn’t lay a finger on the trigger, he waited.

“Then I’d like to _leave_ your service. And by that I mean get out of my inn,” she threatened.

Well, that hadn’t been on the list of things he had been expecting.  He glanced around quickly. He wasn’t dead yet, but everyone in the bar had turned to look at him. The fact that they weren’t looking at the one holding the gun was concerning as well. And they all looked like they shared her sentiment. Just what had he wandered into? “So… that’s a no to the room, then?”

“Out!” the woman repeated.

“What is this place?” Jacob asked. When she cocked the pistol, he put his hands up and slid off the stool. “I’m going, I’m going!” he put his hands up and made his way out of the place, aware of every single set of eyes on him, which, again, was a concerning lot.

Still, now he was just curious, and that had been the poorest show of hospitality he had ever seen. Now he- and the rest of the Assassins just needed answers now. Why had he never heard of this place, even with all of the other drop spots, and informants and their places of business or homes? And how did so many of those people know him by name or reputation, all in the same place- and all look murderous, at that? It didn’t make sense, and now he was going to see what was going on.

 He ducked around the corner, then promptly climbed up the gutter of the neighboring building and jumped onto one of the inn’s window ledges. He counted the windows around the place to try and gauge how many rooms there were, and came up with at least twenty, and only a handful of their windows were opened. That wasn’t going to work. He’d have to check for the biggest room in the place- probably the innkeeper’s.  He found it after a while of circling the place and hopped down to the windowsill and tried not to stare when he found three locks on the window itself.

He squinted at the next window over and found it was the same case. “What is this place?” he repeated.

He went to work picking the locks. Once he was done, he went inside. The place was a run of the mill room, so he figured whatever could give him any sort of answers was hidden in plain sight, or in the desk in the corner, which… would seem too easy. The woman wasn’t just any civilian, so anything too obvious was most likely out of the question.

Still, he checked the desk first. He found nothing but financial ledgers until he spotted a drawer with a lock on it just behind the main set. He picked that lock as well. He opened it, then arched an eyebrow when he saw a leather bound book with the Templar cross etched into it. Oh, now there was a new lead. He had walked into a bloody lion’s den. Suddenly the cross over the Creed symbol on the door made a lot more sense. It wasn’t just a scratch or the wood aging. It was a combination of the symbols. Or the Creed symbol was probably a trap, and he had sprung it, kicking and screaming. So that’s why everyone had glared. But then again, they had let him be and merely just let him get kicked out. That was something. But if this was a Templar hideout, he needed to remedy the situation. He let his hidden blade drop to sleeve level and turned around. He heard the sound of footsteps coming into the room mid-turn and stopped, just long enough to bring out his hidden blade more-

And finished his turn to find a boy, no older than ten standing in the doorway. Out of sheer instinct he tensed and withdrew the blade a bit.

The boy squinted at him. “Who are you?”

Jacob stared at him, weighing his options. He could either just bail out the window or talk the boy down from what was probably inevitably shouting for immediate help. “Hey there, Scamp. This- this your mother’s room? Father’s?”

The boy leaned back out the doorway. “Katie?!”

Jacob tossed his hands up. He scrambled for the Templar notebook, got to it, then launched himself at the window.

Then, behind him, “What the _Hell_ are you doing in here?!”

The innkeeper. Well, now he was stuck. He turned around sharply.

The innkeeper, Kate, apparently, shoved the boy behind her. “Oscar, go downstairs.”

The boy looked up at her. “But-“

“Listen to your mother, Boy,” Jacob replied.

“Don’t speak to him,” Kate snapped.

“She’s not my mother,” Oscar objected simultaneously.

Kate pushed Oscar back out the door and slammed it shut behind him.

Jacob was hardly surprised when he found a gun pointed at his face again a moment later.  “Well, I was, and then you were downright rude. See, I just wanted to know what the door was about, but then I went and found this, and everything made a lot more sense,” he waved the book in front of him. “Except the whole 'not dead' thing. Care to explain that?” he opened the book and glanced at the contents- names and locations. Several of which were the Templars that he and Evie had spent killing the last few months.

She advanced on him and grabbed for the book. When he pulled it back and put it into his jacket pocket, she scowled. “You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well, considering you’re not enlightening me…” Jacob mused. “You know, we’re trained to kill Templars on sight, but now you went and had a kid enter the room, so we’re at a bit of a crossroads here." 

“You are, I’m not.”

“What is this?” Jacob repeated, motioning at the book.

“None of your concern.”

“I say it is.”

Kate shouted in annoyance, then took hold of the vase that was on the table beside her and threw it at him, then lunged.

Jacob dodged it, then struggled to accommodate her follow up attack, more so when he saw that she had drawn a dagger from somewhere.  When she made it close enough, he grabbed her around the waist and shoved. She came back swinging, so he tried again, and she wriggled out of his grip and delivered a halfway decent punch to his jaw. They continued to struggle, with him doing more blocking than fighting, and her scrapping, if anything. But there was a strange grace to her moves at the same time. And then that realization alone hit him. He knew those moves. Not from a specific person, but overall. He did those moves. They were Assassin moves. She was about as rusty as anyone could be, but it was definitely the style. She was lacking the Templar brute force behind them. So perhaps not a Templar. Great, another question to add to the list. He narrowly avoided a headbutt that would’ve at least bruised his nose. He hoisted her up and released her for a split second, just to get a better hold on her. “We can talk about this like civilized people!”  he finally blurted. “I said it before- you didn’t kill me on sight, which I appreciate, so we’re both missing something here-“

“Civilized?! You’re assassins! You _aren’t_ civilized!”

“Yeah, well, apparently that makes two of us, so-“

The comment had backfired on him, if the fact that she was apparently reinvigorated and had shoved him again was any indication. “I am no Assassin!”

“Try again!” Jacob protested.

She snarled, but something in her eyes gave way that she had surrendered- at least for the argument. “Bellec. Does that name ring a bell to you?!”  She swung her knee at him.

He jumped back again, suddenly aware that he was by the opposite window- that had a twenty foot drop into the Thames.

She took his silence as avoidance. “Does it?!”

“No!”

“Exactly!”

He scoffed and risked a glance to the side out of habit, but it was enough for her to rush him again.

He tried to block her, but now the closed in space didn’t help him.  With another shove, he was partially out the window, struggling to stay balanced and failing miserably.

“Goodbye, Jacob Frye.” She shoved him again, and it was enough to send him falling out of it.

By some stretch of the imagination, the boat that was passing beneath the window at that moment happened to have a hay bale just where he landed. He stared up through the hay for a minute, watching her watch him go along for a while before she retreated back inside.

He groaned and stared up at the sky. After a moment, he took the book from his pocket and flipped through it again. There was no other information other than the list of names and places, and not a connection between them in sight.

He needed to talk to Evie. Immediately.  She’d be able to make sense of the book, and she probably could tell him who this Bellec person was. That was, if she could be torn away from her precious husband-to-be. Hell, Greenie would probably even have an answer. He rolled out of the hay bale and made his way to the side of the boat and jumped to the nearest dock. It was that moment that he realized that now a room of any sort to stay overnight in was going to be out of the question, and he was due for a long trip home. He turned up his collar again and started on his way to the nearest set of train tracks.

He had been having such a nice day, and now there were too many questions and a potential mission floating around.  

All in a day’s work, he supposed.

_Shit._

 


	2. After the Window Incident

Two days later, Jacob had made it his mission to make it not look like he was limping through the city. He had been through worse falls than that last one out of the window, but damn it if he wasn’t sore. He had convinced himself he had earned a couple of days off, and had taken upon himself to just enjoy the city for a while.

He had been walking down the street to meet up with a few of his Rooks when he spotted Henry sitting at a table outside a shop. More importantly, he was talking to another woman, leaning close, apparently talking quietly. It looked undeniably intimate, and the woman was very much not Evie. He stopped in his tracks, huffed, and immediately marched over and sat in the chair directly beside the woman. “Greenie! What brings you to this fine establishment?!” His suspicion eased up a bit when Henry didn’t look angry or guilty- just slightly surprised.

“Handling my end of our business,” Henry replied. Again, guiltless- almost fondly, like he hadn’t been caught red handed with another woman.   

Jacob’s knuckles itched, eager to be in a clenched fist if things went south. “And what’s that? Recruiting women who don’t know better?” Jacob countered with a smirk. He turned to the woman in question, and his forced smile dropped. “ _You_!”

Kate merely looked his way and arched an eyebrow at him. “Mister Frye,” she greeted drily before she turned back to Henry.

Henry looked between them. “You two have met?”

Jacob jabbed a finger in her direction. “She’s the one I told you about! The one who shoved me out of that inn window! You’re being unfaithful to Evy with _her_?!”

“What? Unfaith- no! She’s a business associate!” Henry objected.  The first part of Jacob’s revelation registered in his head, and he looked to Kate for an explanation.

Kate scoffed. “He had broken in. Could’ve harmed Oscar.”

Jacob crossed his arms over his chest. He knew Henry enough to know he was telling the truth about not being involved with the woman, but now he was more focused on just who their latest ‘associate’ was. “I wasn’t going to harm the boy! I said as much when you were in earshot before  you tried to kill me!”

“I was protecting my family,” Kate countered.

“Right, because that justifies attempted murder,” Jacob shot back.

“It’s not murder if I sent you into hay on purpose to avoid killing you. I know enough about you to know you could survive that fall,” Kate snapped.

Jacob stared at her. He enjoyed the brief ego stroke, yes, but now wasn’t the time.  

Henry looked between them. The other two could tell he was debating stepping in, but knew not to as well.

Jacob turned his attention to the other man. “I don’t know why you’re even talking to her, she’s got a book with Templar intel.” He tossed his hands up when she scoffed at him. “What? Trying to deny it?”

Henry held his hand out to stop whatever argument would’ve gone on. “I know about the book.” Before Kate could protest, Henry finally cut in. “This one…” he raised his wrist to reveal that same leather-bound book from the other day under his arm.

“Ha! Yes!” Jacob confirmed. “Wait, why…?”

“It’s not the information you think it is,” Henry explained.  “It’s not… for Templars.”

Jacob crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back and put his feet on the table. He stared at Henry, waiting.

Henry sighed. “It’s names of families that our interference has… inconvenienced. Most of the time, the ones with Templars are the breadwinners. Katherine wishes that we should help them along financially-“

“Help Templars?!” Jacob cut him off. “Absolutely not!”

“Their _families_ ,” Kate corrected. “Innocent parties that get the crook end of the deal.”  

“Well it’s not our fault that their heads of house allied with the wrong people, is it? Why should we pay their way?” Jacob asked.

“Because it’s the right thing to do, and we have been for some time now,” Henry countered.

Before Jacob could protest further, Kate reached into the bag she had with her. Jacob tensed, and Kate caught the action. “Easy, Mister Frye. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t do it out in the open.”

Jacob grunted. “There’s that last name bit again…” he watched her carefully, then frowned when she pulled out a second book. It was near identical to the Templar one, save for the Creed symbol etched into the leather where the Templar one was on the other.

“And some of your counterparts have done you the same favor.”

“Templars? Helping us?” Jacob asked.

Kate raised an eyebrow and offered him the book.

Jacob took it and flipped through it. He took in several names that he recognized. They were friends who Templars had killed on missions, or mere collateral damage in other fights. There were family breakdowns beside them- no names, but numbers. So if anyone reading the name of the Assassin and decided to use the info against them, they wouldn’t know who to look for or where to look, Jacob realized. His heart sunk at the mention of ‘Thomlinson’- he had known Marcus Thomlinson briefly a couple of years before. A good man, slaughtered… mere collateral damage in a Templar scheme. According to the scribbles next to it, his family was being looked after for the last few months. “How do we know this is legitimate?”

“I’ve followed up on some of the leads,” Henry answered.

Jacob wanted to throw something at the other man when he had the nerve to look apologetically at Kate after he said it. “Well, if you do this, why are you so against the Assassins?”

“I’m not for or against any of you. I’m a neutral party, looking out for the people both sides overlook,” Kate answered.

“And how do you know Templars won’t come and kill the families?” Jacob asked.

“I only deal with a few trusted ones. I keep an eye on them, and only give them one name at a time every few months. If there’s trouble, I… interfere,” Kate answered. “And then look for new people to deal with. The same goes for your Assassins… there were a few of you before Henry who were willing to betray your code in order to eliminate any Templar leads at all. I… dealt with them accordingly.”

Jacob looked at Henry, and when Henry looked back and shrugged, he swung his hands out wildly. “ “She’s just admitted to killing us!”

“And Templars. She just said it: only our people who have broken the code and harmed innocents. I would not abide by their indiscretion either,” Henry objected.

Jacob sighed heavily, considering. Everything seemed to be sound, and if he hadn’t heard anything about her when Henry had apparently known her for a while, that said thing about how well of a kept secret her trade was. He trusted Henry with his life, and terrible introduction aside, he could _probably_ trust her. The more he thought about it, if a child or his family’s life was potentially in danger by someone who had made it into their personal space, he probably would’ve done worse than she had.

Kate frowned at him. “Any other complaints to get off your chest, Mister Frye?”

He looked at her and smirked. “Not for now. Keep that up and I’ll have a new set soon.”

Henry leaned forward. “If you are both quite finished…” he began.

Both of them knew full well he didn’t intend to finish the statement or request. It was a hint to leave.

Jacob lifted his head at the mention of the name. She had taunted him with it before, and he had been so busy sulking he had forgotten about it. So she was a relative of whoever she had mentioned. Father, probably? Oh, what if she was the daughter of one of the Templar bastards he had killed? Well, that quite explained the Window Incident, if that was the case. He made a mental note to go through the list of old hits to dig deeper. He paused and glanced at the book with the Templar insignia that hadn’t been retrieved yet. Or he could just find a way to get _that_ and see for himself.  He must’ve looked at it a moment too long, because Kate immediately took it off the table and slipped it in the bag at her side with a pointed look at him.  He put his hands up.

Henry sighed. “Why don’t you two start over? Miss Bellec, will you allow Mr. Frye to escort you home?”

Kate scoffed. “It’s either agreeing to that or having him follow me ten paces behind, so let’s not taint the fresh start with more trouble,” she said as she got to her feet. When Jacob didn’t move, it was her turn to sigh. “Come on.”

Jacob smirked. “Well, who am I to let a proper lady walk these streets unattended?” he countered. He got up, winked at Henry, then followed after her. When she returned his smirk and intentionally took a couple of strides ahead of him, he wasn’t sure whether to be infuriated or impressed. It took him a matter of seconds and dodging through a couple of crowds to get back to her, but he managed it. “What? We can’t be friends?”

“That remains to be seen. You’re the one acting childish.”

“You threw me out of a window!” Jacob objected.

“A simple apology wouldn’t hurt.”

Jacob went to protest further, but decided against it. “I’m sorry I broke into your hotel after thinking it was a Templar base because who would actually know the bloody difference with that mark on the wall. I’m sorry for making you think I was going to harm your brother. It was hardly my intention.” He made it sound fake and rehearsed to make a point.

“ ‘And it won’t happen again’,” Kate prompted.

Jacob stopped in his tracks, but when she turned back to him with a smile that meant she was giving it right back to him, he shook his head and caught up to her. “And it won’t happen again,” he repeated, then: “Unless you give me reason to.”  

“Good,” Kate nodded.

“Aren’t you forgetting something then?” Jacob asked.  When she looked back at him, he did his best to mimick the look she had given him at her final request.

She laughed. “And I’m sorry about the incident with the window. It won’t happen again… unless you give me reason to.”

Jacob tossed his hands out good-naturedly. “Didn’t seem too hard.”

“Hardly,” Kate agreed.

They walked in silence for a while, and Jacob surprised himself by being the one to break it. “So… this… Pierre Bellec fellow…”

“My great uncle. He was… betrayed by Arno Dorian for simply wanting to uphold the code. My father blamed the Brotherhood as much as Dorian, and… denounced our line from them.”

Arno Dorian. Jacob had heard that name. He had read about a handful of kills the man had done, and a few  documents had mentioned him killing a mentor when the former had refused to make peace with the Templars. Had that been Bellec? And if the family had left the Brotherhood for a relative being killed over not wanting to make peace, what the Hell was his relative doing trying to broker that peace two generations later?  He really did have to go check out what he could find later. “If you left the Brotherhood for defending not wanting peace, why… go into a profession that caters to both sides?” When they turned the corner, the Orphan’s Rest drifted into view. “Why this?” he asked, motioning at it.

 “I care for people, Mister Frye. Not politics. My great uncle was a good man, but he didn’t care about collateral damage. I do.”

 “So… you open an inn filled with people who are still connected to one side or the other, innocent or not? It’s a powder keg near a lit match!”

Kate shrugged. “Most of the time they’re fine because they’re so fed up with either side it doesn’t matter. Besides, Oscar and I are all that’s left of the family now. I need to provide. The local doctors won’t have a woman by their side, so… this is the next best thing.”

They reached the entryway to the Inn.

Jacob looked up at it, then glanced at the post that had confused him before. He ran a finger over the two guild marks that had puzzled him. It made far more sense now. Overlap them, and it was arguably a brand new symbol but comprised of the old. He could understand that, at least. “Well… the idea’s a bit mad, but… I’m hardly one to judge.”

“I do believe that was a compliment,” Kate teased and opened the front door. “Did saying it hurt?”

“A little.” Jacob went to follow her further, but several of the same sets of eyes that had glared him down the other day were suddenly on him again. He stood his ground. “So… who comes to your aid when things go wrong?”

“No one. It won’t.”

“What is he doing back here?!”

Jacob peaked behind her. Her little brother- Oscar, if he remembered correctly, was on the stairs scowling at him. “Hello there, Scamp! All’s well!  Your sister and I were just having a little chat!” he explained.

“And he was just leaving,” Kate added, directed more to the patrons than her brother. She gave Jacob a pointed look and took hold of his shoulders in order to steer him back towards the door.

Jacob went with it, but smiled. “Who’s gonna come to the rescue when that one starts a bloody riot in here?”

“I assure you, I’ll manage without any of your charming heroics,” Kate countered.

“Ooh, I’m _charming_ now, am I? Quite the change from uncivilized.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know the best part of our little agreement, Mister Frye?”

“Do enlighten me, Miss Bellec!”

“I agreed to not throwing you out windows. I said nothing about doors.” She gave him a moderate shove and he stumbled straight through the doorway. She shut it behind him immediately.

He recovered quickly, stared at the closed door, and couldn’t help the appreciative laugh that bubbled up from his chest.

“What was _that_ about?” came Evie’s voice from behind him.

Jacob went over to her and tossed an arm around her shoulders. “Dear sister, I think I’m in love.”  

Evy looked from him, to the door and back, clearly having seen the latter part of the whole commotion. “… And I’m sure that will go swimmingly for you.”

“I’ve had worse.”

Evie rolled her eyes. “I’m meeting Henry.  You can go be lovestruck back on the train.”

“Eh, I’m actually quite hungry now. And that little spot Henry picked out did look quite quaint. I think I’ll come with you.”

“ _No_.”

“Try and stop me,” Jacob answered. He started walking, then turned back to her. “I mean, who knows how much quality time the three of us will have together again, hm?” he countered before he turned around and started walking back towards the restaurant.

Evie sighed. She was slightly worried that she wasn’t sure if that response was a joke or serious, or both. She let the barest hint of guilt seep into her thoughts, and before she could realize her mistake and fight it, it won her over. She tossed her head back and followed him.  She’d have to figure something else out for just her and Henry.


End file.
